Hacker News Reader

Comment by recursive | Hacker News Reader

The only reason Netflix appears to support DRM is because they get content from organizations that demand it.

That's how they present it. However they don't sound convincing. This announcement is enthusiastic, rather than saying "yeah, we don't really like what's going on, but our hands are tied, etc. etc.". If they are enthusiastic about DRM - they are promoting it. So it's reasonable to criticize them for it.

Today, we're excited to announce, blah, blah

People who don't like DRM and only use it out of supposedly necessity (bad excuse if you ask me), won't be excited about it.

Also, Netflix is supposedly streaming some content that they own themselves. Is it offered DRM free?

"This announcement is enthusiastic, rather than saying..."

Well, Netflix is in the business of renting video, not in the business of fighting DRM.

I don't argue with that. All I'm saying - they are pro DRM. But when confronted about it, they try to deny it, and pretend they aren't. Being pro DRM is bad PR for them. Publishers are at least honest that they support DRM (out of some stupid reasons). It's not publishers however, but Netflix who pushes this garbage into the standard. So they have to bear the responsibility instead of pretending that they have nothing to do with it.

I don't see how that changes anything. Netflix supports DRM because they view it as imperative to their profitability. That's exactly why the content creators support DRM.

Exactly! It's in the contracts Netflix signs for content distribution. So really this is good for Netflix , but CAN open the door for competitions. I don't think cable providers will let the opportunity pass them to stream through a browser.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com